


Schedios

by lonelywalker



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Drawing, M/M, Serial Killers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-07
Updated: 2013-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-10 16:38:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/788178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywalker/pseuds/lonelywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lately Hannibal's had a new muse for his drawings. One day, Will finds out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Schedios

**Author's Note:**

> _Schedios_ is the Greek origin of the term "sketch", meaning _temporary_.

What troubled Hannibal in the end was whether he had intended Will to find the drawings all along.

It was a habit he’d picked up over the years, to pass the fifteen minutes or so he allowed between patients by sketching with a pad on his lap, a sharp pencil between his fingers. On occasion he even permitted himself to continue while the patient was with him. As they related their traumatic tales, he nodded and gave the convincing impression that he was making pertinent notes rather than recalling the finer details of a Parisian monument.

Rather than distracting him, the activity kept him focused – not usually on the patient’s story which, after all, was usually some banal affair he could extrapolate from their general character – but on honing his skills as finely as he pared away graphite slivers with the scalpel edge: his recall, his eye for detail, his ability to make careful straight lines without the need for a rule or eraser. Buildings were his usual topics, as they posed a challenge for his artistic skill while seeming utterly mundane to the casual observer. 

On other occasions he turned his attention to anatomy, replicating the sketches of long ago that had first interested the staff of John Hopkins. Time and time again he returned to Wound Man, Zodiac Man, and other variations on the original illustrations of _Fasciculus Medicinae_. These he mostly shredded, no matter how impressive they were. One only needed so many copies of any one piece and, besides, some of his visitors might gain quite the erroneous impression despite his illustrious medical background.

When he was a boy, paging through textbooks in a library, he’d first encountered the concept of persistence hunting. It had astonished him then, the idea that a healthy human could, given enough time, outrun a deer. It was not only counterintuitive, it seemed impossible, particularly in view of his classmates’ struggles to run for five minutes without gasping and wheezing. Even the young Hannibal had frowned at running through forests for hours – marathon runners trained for endurance, and they mostly ran on pavement with special shoes, and never had to kill anything at the end. But the book said it was possible, and Hannibal had learned to trust books far above his own abilities.

On the weekends he’d started running. It had been far from pleasant at first. He’d stopped often. But he’d made himself breathe, resist gulping down water, and instead calmly sit on his pack and draw something on the pad that was small enough to slip into his back pocket. Sometimes it had felt as though he would suffocate, trying to breathe normally, keep a steady hand, focus on his memories of the boarding school's architecture rather than his own desperate need for oxygen. Over the weeks, his running improved, and so did his art. Both had come in quite useful in the following years.

He rarely, if ever, drew people.

The idea occurred to him some hours after Will came to his office: agitated, angry. The office was intended to evoke some of the peace and tranquility of a library – many patients even found the need to speak in hushed tones – but Will paced and raised his voice along with his hands, climbed up to the walkway and paced some more. 

“Have you ever tried running?” Hannibal said, amused.

“What? No… Well, yes, sometimes. My dogs, you know… What are these?”

He’d been poking around Hannibal’s desk, where no patient ever ventured. But Will was no patient, and his explorations were a result of anxiety, not a serious search. Besides, there was very little in the entire office that could be called evidence, and then only within a specific context.

Will was holding up a sheaf of papers. “Are you building a mansion?”

“Merely drawing a mansion.” 

For one moment, at least, Will was standing still, riveted. “You drew this?” He flipped to the next. “Hannibal, this is incredible. You should be an architect.”

“Ah, architecture requires original ideas. I only reflect them.” Which, perhaps, summed up his current profession as well. “Just a pastime.”

Will’s eyes narrowed. “What’s this?"

In a flash, Hannibal realized that he had never thought to compensate for the associations of Will’s mind, even with something as apparently harmless as an anatomical drawing. For Will, everything reminded him of a crime scene. And this illustration, with organs pulled from the body, was far more gruesome than most modern medical texts. 

Hannibal sat down on one of his chairs. Perhaps he was too obviously trying to appear relaxed. But then, he was relaxed. His heartbeat barely crept above 50 these days. “I have an interest in anatomical diagrams from the Middle Ages. Some of them are startlingly accurate, even by today’s standards.”

“I can see that.” Will lingered for a moment and then set down the pile. “I didn’t know you could draw.”

“It’s occasionally a useful skill for a surgeon. Less so for a psychiatrist. I expect not at all in relation to criminal investigations.”

Will shrugged and came to sit opposite him. “Even in the age of camera phones and CCTV, not every witness gets a photo. Drawing from memory can be vital.”

“Unfortunately also unreliable. At least I can check the veracity of my work against reality.” He nodded to the iPad on his desk. 

“They look pretty good to me.” 

Hannibal could see Will breathe out, some of the tension ebbing from his shoulders. “Thank you. So, Will, tell me again, what precisely happened with Jack and this student of yours?”

That night he’d gone for a run, along city streets to the nearest park, winding between other joggers and dog walkers. He preferred trail running, cross country, but in Baltimore that was never a convenient option, and he had no extracurricular excursions planned for at least another few days. At home, devoid of company for dinner, he switched on some Vivaldi, poured himself a glass of red wine, and found himself picking up his sketch pad once more.

Why had he even brought it home? Usually he left almost all of his papers at the office, preferring to divest himself of that world and all its attendant triviality and deceptions. It unnerved him whenever he failed to understand his own motivations, particularly when he had spent the day unraveling the minds of others. Did he require renewed focus, after Will had rifled through his work, invaded his space? Not at all. He couldn’t even characterize it like that: Will was a friend, one of the few whose company he genuinely enjoyed, and very far from being a threat, regardless how much evidence Hannibal had carelessly strewn in his path. But his mind was elsewhere tonight, somewhere far from the meaningful work he should have been carrying out, far from his books and research… He took a sip of wine, sharpened his pencil, and watched, fascinated, to see what his psyche might dredge up.

The next day the image was still preoccupying him, nagging at his mind. There was nothing particularly odd about the drawing itself: a perfectly adequate rendering of a portrait. But it was so far from his usual predilections that he had to wonder what it meant. Did he want to take Will on one of his hunts, pierce him through? No… No. But Will was no cold-stone building, no faceless diagram. 

He could have run it through the shredder, made some excuses and spent a little time away from Will, but that would have been the coward’s decision. Instead, he could only choose to take his own professional advice and find out more. He had to pity his patients – for a week he was unforgivably vacant, distracted, far more interested in psychoanalyzing his own subconscious than helping them.

Which was fine, in its way. Physician, know thyself. But then why was he so careless to leave the papers in the office, not even tucked away in some obscure upper-shelf tome, but lying covered only by drawings in which Will had already expressed an interest?

He knew the answer. He just didn’t like it.

The next time Will visited the office, he brought lunch – sandwiches and coffee from a chain establishment a block or so away. “I know you’re very careful about what you eat,” Will said, somehow managing to be apologetic about doing a good deed, “but it must be nice to eat something you don’t need to prepare. And I don’t think one sub is going to kill you.”

“Thank you.” Hannibal had hung up his jacket and was now carefully rolling up his sleeves to avoid staining them with mayonnaise or mustard. “What’s the occasion?”

Will sank down to sit on the chaise longue, which few patients ever used. Still, there were some who had seen too many movies and genuinely wanted to lie back and be asked about their mother. “I can’t just come and have lunch with a friend?”

“You can. But I don’t think you would." The sandwich was… different, certainly, And almost impossible to eat with any amount of elegance. 

Will took a bite, wiped mustard from his mouth. “We were talking about memory before.”

“I remember.”

“Right. And of course the thing about facial composites, witness drawings, witness statements, is they’re so inaccurate. You’ve read the studies. They’re probably better than nothing, but... Well, we’d like to _believe_ they’re better than nothing.”

Hannibal took a sip of his coffee instead. Strong, at least. “And today this is troubling you?”

“Yes, Hannibal, today this is troubling me." Will left his sandwich on the table and took off to wander the room, cardboard coffee cup in hand. “There have been some killings in Virginia. Jack wanted me to talk to you before, but we’ve been busy and I can’t talk to you about every little thing just in case I have a breakdown. But for these murders we actually have witnesses. ‘Great!’ you might think. Makes our job so much easier. Except naturally they all contradict each other: we're looking for a tall black guy, short white guy with blond hair, no, maybe an athletic brunette woman. I'd like to ignore them completely, just start from what we really _know_ and go from there, but Jack insists there must be something in it. So here I am, bribing you with sandwiches.”

“You know the way to my heart, Will.” Hannibal examined the length of the sandwich. Was he going to have to eat the entire thing to ensure Will didn’t leave dejected? Well, he’d consumed worse.

“So if you can come to Quantico tomorrow, I’ll show you the…" He trailed off to the sounds of rustling paper. A pause. Hannibal washed down another bite with even more coffee. “Is this _me_?”

Hannibal glanced over. “If you seem to be missing vital organs, I’d expect not.”

“No, this _is_ me.” Will held it up to the light. It was a pencil drawing like all the others, but the style was far different quite apart from the subject matter. Hannibal could have drawn him in stark detail, but instead it was almost… affectionate. “Why are you drawing me? I mean, it’s really good, I’ve never looked this good in photos, but do you draw all your patients? Is Jack in here somewhere?”

Another pause. Hannibal let a blink endure for a second longer. He had reasoned, logical explanations on hand for far worse crimes. If Will had just found a fresh corpse in his office he would be able to swiftly talk his way out of it. But this…

Will walked over, just within the circle of chairs. The papers were still in his hands. “Hannibal… I don’t even know what to _say_. Is this some kind of _medical_ work? You just happen to be using someone who looks like me to demonstrate… I don’t even…” He tossed the sheets onto the table. “You drew me _naked_ which, okay, you’re not the first. Some of my students doodle. But tied to a _chair_? You drew me with an erection and, just for your information, my penis does not look like that.”

Hannibal carefully set down both sandwich and cup. At least now he had a good excuse not to consume any more. “Ah,” he said. “Circumcised?”

“This isn’t…” Will pushed back his hair, seemingly unable to conjure up a word for what is actually was. “It isn’t funny, Hannibal. This is an invasion of my privacy, which you should be acutely aware of as a doctor and a psychiatrist and an actual decent human being. And honestly it’s kind of creepy. If I was one of your patients, a female patient, finding stuff like this? I’d be calling the cops.”

“But you are one of the cops, Will.” Hannibal adopted the expression he assumed was the very picture of penitence. "I do apologize. Wholeheartedly. I occasionally use my art to work through my own psychological preoccupations, and of course I never intended for you, or indeed anyone, to see the results.”

Will stood there as if frozen. “Your psychological preoccupations are with my penis?”

“As I’m sure you know, drawings like these are not always representative..."

“Hannibal, I’m tied to a _chair_. Naked. Are you going to tell me this is some kind of Rorschach? That really you only meant it to, what, depict my overactive empathy holding me back? But because I see it as porn rather than a dispassionate psychological study, that’s somehow saying more about me than you?” 

Hannibal bowed his head, just enough so he could no longer hold Will's gaze. And he'd once said Will had issues with eye contact. “I don’t know what to tell you, Will.”

He fully expected Will to storm out, and that he’d have a very awkward phone conversation with Jack Crawford in the near future. He’d endangered his good standing with the FBI and possibly his practice, not to mention certain other activities, and for what? To try and understand certain thoughts he’d been having lately? The drawings hadn’t even been much help. 

But Will sat down on the edge of the chaise longue again, body still tense, and leaned forward. “Hannibal… Is this how you really feel? About me?”

Options played in his mind, possible answers and their consequences. It was only after the silence had gone on one uncomfortable moment too many that he decided by far the best idea was to tell the truth: “I’m not sure. Feeling this way is… very new to me.”

Will leaned his elbows on his knees, rubbed the bridge of his nose under his glasses. “I had no idea. Usually I’m pretty good at figuring out who’s crushing on me. Students trying to get too close, you know. Honestly you didn't ping my radar at all. If anything I thought you were probably asexual. No offense."

“Why would I be offended?”

“Some people would be.” Will drew in a breath and directed his gaze to the strewn papers again. “They really are very good. I mean, I'd be very honored if you were my… I just tend to see this sort of thing pinned up in serial killers' basements."

Hannibal nodded. “I understand,” he said. “But what were you going to say? If I were your… what?”

Will swept off his glasses this time, stared studiously at the lenses. “I never thought of you that way. Maybe I should have. I’m not really your patient, and you’re definitely not my student. And it’s not as if I’m not…” He sighed, looked up. “Aren’t you supposed to know what I’m trying to say?”

“I believe you may be mistaking psychiatry for telepathy. But yes, Will, I think I understand. Which is to say, what sort of drawings do you think they’d be if they were yours?”

“Probably exactly like a five-year-old’s scribble.” Will pulled one of them toward him with a finger. “I haven’t done well with relationships. You’re the closest thing I’ve had to a real friend in years. I couldn’t let myself think you might be more… I don’t even remember how to do this.” He drummed his fingers against the drawing. 

“What’s ‘this’?” Hannibal asked. The drawing itself was something simple, just Will as Hannibal had imagined him nude, a hand curled around his erect penis. Probably laughable to anyone who had really seen Will naked, but it was the best he and his imagination could do. 

Will shrugged heavy shoulders, directed a helpless, pleading look in Hannibal’s direction. “I don’t know. What am I supposed to do? Invite you to dinner? The movies?”

Someone like Jack Crawford, someone who had done all of this, confidently moved through this dance ten, twenty, fifty times, might laugh at the two of them. Even Hannibal was hardly new to the concept, but Will… Will he couldn’t afford to break, to harm, at least until he could begin to comprehend the workings of his own mind. “I think perhaps we’re a little beyond the getting to know you stage.” Whatever mood he’d been in when he’d created those drawings, whatever he'd felt, seemed even stronger now. "Do you want me to help you feel good, Will?"

He watched Will swallow, and would have done anything to taste his throat in that instant. Will’s gaze flicked to the doors. “You’re expecting a patient?”

“Not at all. There was a cancellation… Trip out of state.” Hannibal rose to his feet and loosened his tie. “Are you sure, Will?”

Will nodded, swallowed again. “You’re not going to tie me to anything, are you?”

“Not if you don't want me to. And besides, I don't keep many restraints in my office."

“Good to know.” 

Hannibal sat down beside him, Will's tension almost palpable, like a virgin… Which Hannibal supposed was possible, but unlikely, even for someone as intrinsically sensitive as Will. He ran his thumb over Will’s bitten lips and moved in, kissing him, planting a hand on Will’s thigh. It was an act mostly reserved for a lover, at least in American culture, this tasting of another human, and certainly the tongue, the hollow of the throat. Hannibal had to remind himself not to get carried away. Will was already murmuring, “Oh god, Hannibal…”, no longer unsure at all.

“I’ve been very neglectful in my research,” Hannibal said, laying his palm against Will’s crotch, feeling his body react. “Really a faithful depiction requires first-hand knowledge. An in-depth study, as it were.”

Will laughed, Hannibal suspected with relief more than anything, tension suddenly released. “You have the worst metaphors. I’m still trying to figure out the one about the mongoose.”

“Some of my best work,” Hannibal said, his smile a little wry, as he slipped to his knees.

When he’d first taken possession of the office, he'd designed it to make his patients feel comfortable, yes, but also to ensure that he was in control. It was very much his favored esthetic, his own domain. And in all those years, his knees had probably never touched the carpet. Will Graham, he had to admit, drove him to do some very uncharacteristic things.

Will only watched him as he worked loose the belt, rubbed his hand softly over the unmistakable outline of a stiffening erection, and gently pushed the undershorts away. Yes, well, he'd been off the mark in some aspects, but given a little time and diligent study, Hannibal could easily set them right.

He could almost taste the blood that was thickening Will’s cock. And this, certainly, was territory only covered by the most intimate partner. He stroked Will first, though, feeling his every breath, the searing heat of the life in him. When he looked up, Will was indeed biting down on those beautiful lips. “Relax, Will,” he said. “All I need you to do is enjoy it.”

Even that might have been too much to ask from Will, who had been walking on a psychological cliff edge lately, who was now having the head of his cock licked by not only a friend, but a man (if that mattered), and someone he'd never imagined might do this before he’d stepped into the room, paged through the drawings. Or had he? He’d brought coffee, sandwiches, something he’d never done in the past. Sharing food was always an intimacy, something of which Hannibal had been acutely aware the first time he’d brought Will breakfast.

“Oh god…” At least Will was breathing now as Hannibal trailed fingertips along the thigh of his slacks, took him in deeper. One of Will’s hands settled on his head, his touch light as though hesitant. "That feels... Oh _fuck_ that feels good."

Hannibal had experienced much the same sentiments regarding his cooking on a few occasions. People would poke at the meat with their fork, uncertain whether they really wanted this gourmet dish with the French name. But when they took a reluctant bite, their faces would light up with what was almost erotic enjoyment. 

When he glanced up, he expected Will's eyes to be closed. Instead Will was watching, watching that wet slide of cock between lips, the way Hannibal’s mouth filled up with him. A moment later, Will’s hand pressed harder, fingers tangling up tightly in his hair. They did this sometimes. Men or women, they barely ever made a scratch on his face, but hair pulling seemed to be some sort of primal survival instinct. Either that, or a lesson learned on playgrounds worldwide. He could have trimmed his hair shorter, but in all honesty he quite liked the sensation.

“Hannibal…” Will said his name in a gasp, hips moving, forcing the pace. “Oh god, keep this up and you're going to make me come.”

Hannibal smiled around him. As if there could be any question. He smoothed a hand down over the crotch of his own pants, where a rare heat had begun to surge. _Not now_. But it was fascinating how much of a response Will Graham provoked in him, the physical alongside the purely intellectual. Perhaps it was the weight of Will's cock, heavy with blood, against his tongue, the way he could graze Will's skin with his teeth and evoke low moans of pleasure. He should have tried this with Will long, long before. Oh, what fun they could have had.

Will was probably too polite, too cautious, too much of an essentially good boy to really fuck his mouth, but he kept his hand where it was and kept moving as if making damn sure Hannibal wasn’t going anywhere. Arousal was a great leveler, sweeping away manners and morals across the board. Hannibal considered about how interesting it might be to taste Will’s balls, lick the sweat from his thighs, and discover all that yet remained clothed and concealed. So many desirable courses, so many limits to test.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck..." Will was breathing hard, then barely breathing at all. “God, I’m gonna come.”

Who really pulled away from this, let it spatter on their chest or belly? What a waste and what a mess. As Will spilled out against his tongue with a cry, Hannibal swallowed him down: not so much of a meal, all told, but more than satisfying as an appetizer. 

He kept Will in his mouth, safe and tender and warm, while Will took deep sighing breaths, caressing Hannibal’s hair and finally leaning down to kiss it. 

“Your mouth is... the most amazing thing," Will said as Hannibal finally stood, going to fetch the pocket handkerchief from his jacket so he could wipe his lips clean. 

“And you mock my metaphors.”

When Hannibal returned to sit by Will's side once more, Will reached for him. "Let me..."

“No need,” Hannibal said. And then, fearing he’d been too abrupt, smiled. “You should get back to your case. I’ll be happy to visit Quantico tomorrow. But perhaps you’ll have dinner with me tonight? Serial killings permitting, of course.”

Will took his hand from Hannibal’s hip and instead tucked his softening cock back into his shorts. “Does this dinner include actual food, or just tying me to a chair while you suck me off?”

“Would you object to either one?”

The smile came much more readily to Will’s face than it ever had before. The wonders of endorphins. “It might affect what I wear.”

“You look just lovely the way you are.” Hannibal patted his thigh and stood. “Perhaps you’d like to take the drawings. I’d prefer that none of my patients find them as you did.”

Will gathered them up. “I'm sorry they’re not exactly suitable for displaying on my walls.”

“Perhaps I’ll draw something new for you. Something a little more amenable to general audiences. I wouldn’t want to traumatize your dogs.”

“Oh, they’ve seen far worse.” They stood together, some of the tension and awkwardness returning to Will’s posture. “This is very… odd, isn’t it?”

“Is it?” 

“I feel like I should be paying you. Or kissing you. And neither seems very…” He took a breath. “I’ll see you tonight?”

“Mm. Shall we say eight?”

Will nodded. “Sure… Sure.” He turned to leave, turned back and hesitantly kissed Hannibal on the lips before ducking his head and hurrying to the exit, clutching the set of drawings. 

Perhaps later he would reflect on the unsettling nature of the art, on the strangeness of Hannibal’s desire for him. Perhaps he would throw the pictures down on Jack Crawford’s desk and the situation would indeed become as difficult as Hannibal had originally imagined. But that wasn’t the Will Graham that Hannibal knew, and certainly wasn’t the Will Graham who had whispered his name as Hannibal sucked his cock. 

There was very little doubt, as Hannibal scooped what remained of their sandwiches and coffee into the trash, polishing his table back to the shine it had once held, that Will would appear at his door that evening, apologizing for his inevitable lateness. He’d be awkward once more until Hannibal took the lead, kissing him, feeding him, taking him to bed. But that was the nature of art, of persistence hunting. Patience was its own reward.

He had half an hour until his next scheduled appointment: time to smooth his hair, use the restroom, have something less repugnant to eat… But instead he settled in his chair and took up his pad and pencil once more. Perhaps a gift for good Will, and another idea to plant in his mind. 

Whether he’d wanted Will to find them or not, the drawings had certainly opened up an entirely new direction for his latest hunt. He could barely wait to see where it would take him.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Hannibal Kink Meme](http://hannibalkink.dreamwidth.org/1375.html) and this prompt: Hannibal likes to draw Will without Will's knowledge. Anything from harmless portraits to more sexual pictures to kinky stuff (Will tied to a chair, Will bleeding ...). How does Will react when he finds those drawings? Can be established relationship or first time, whatever you prefer.


End file.
